Last night I encountered a 3 min+ ad on YT about the construction of the iPhone 17 Pro. A few seconds were devoted to the cooling system. I watched the whole thing. It was better than the video it interrupted.
Watching that video, the first thought I have is "So much engineering and I still need to buy a phone case with my new phone?"
I'm guessing phone cases are still pretty much required if you drop your phone once or twice a month onto cement/asphalt/marble/etc from pocket height.
I would be really curious to hear the internal debate at Apple wrt design tradeoffs + durability. E.g. how much of the iPhone design is only possible because Apple is assuming the average person will have a case on their phone.
I wouldn't be surprised if the typical consumer would be more impressed by "No Case Required iPhone" compared to "Skinniest and lightest iPhone yet!".
> I'm guessing phone cases are still pretty much required if you drop your phone once or twice a month onto cement/asphalt/marble/etc from pocket height.
Here's video of a drop test where the new Pro version survived drops to the pavement on its front, back, and side from hip height, then the same three drops from shoulder height and finally having the front glass fail in the third drop from as high above his head as dude's arms would reach.
> Watching that video, the first thought I have is "So much engineering and I still need to buy a phone case with my new phone?"
You can buy a $400m yacht and still need buoys when you dock it.
Unless you want a phone that comes with a pre-installed rubber bumper around the outside, or we have some humanity altering discoveries in transparent materials science, you’re always going to have a case. Gravity and concrete are undefeated.
Saying "gravity and concrete are undefeated" is not explanatory.
In 25+ years of carrying a naked mobile phone everywhere I've never broken one. My lifestyle theoretically exposes me to significantly greater risk of damage than the average person too. I view phones as semi-disposable devices, so I take no special care or precautions.
I am eternally baffled as to why people need cases on their phones. The observation that many people do seem to break them frequently isn't an explanation. I can't wrap my head around the degree of clumsiness and carelessness that would seem to be required to explain this phenomenon.
Neither do i, i drop it often, throw it about and its fine.
Everyone goes mad and is surprised, but whats the point if buying a nice phone then covering it in a case.
Yeah, I never understand these caseless discussions.
I went caseless once since I didn't realize my case would arrive a week after I bought the phone.
The phone was slippery (couldn't temporarily rest it on my knee), and I found myself inspecting the restaurant/bar table any time I put the phone down after that one night I placed it right into a puddle of beer condensation and some mysterious food that got in the mic on the back of the phone and grossed me out.
The phone could be indestructible to drops and it still wouldn't solve those issues.
I go caseless just because of sheer amount of bulk cases add, even the "thin" ones. It significantly impacts how easy the device is to hold and pocket.
The Air I might consider putting a bumper case on since its thinness offsets the bulk increase, but it's specifically made to be resilient to drops so it's a coin toss even with that.
I barely drop my phone though, it happens maybe twice a year, usually on carpet. In the last decade my phones might've had a run-in with concrete or pavement 2-3 times, tops.
You usually just need to replace the front or back glass, which is $30 with Apple Care or $60 for both, not the entire iPhone. I crack mine about once a year.
I started using cases after having a Pixel 2 XL shatter in a 1 foot drop onto a granite countertop, but started going case-less again with my most recent iPhone 15 Pro (ironically, after the horrible quality Apple case I mistakenly bought with it disintegrated).
It's been a year so far of completely non-cautious use and my general take is:
* The screen still scratches; I leave my phone in my pocket or a bicycle saddle bag and it definitely has some damage. However, it is only visible with the screen off, and it turns out not to bother me a single bit.
* The frame of the phone seems almost invulnerable; even with a case many of my older phones got dinged corners, and this one is perfect.
* Overall, the only functional issue I have had with going caseless has been the propensity for the protruding cameras to pick up dust and fingerprints. I find myself having to wipe them even more frequently than I did when I had a case.
I suspect that a case still would have been a net-positive fiscal investment, I'll probably have to sell this phone in "good" or "fair" condition rather than "factory new" like a phone with a case and glass screen protector for its whole life, so I'll lose $50-$100. But I like using the phone on its own. The side and action buttons finally function as they should and the size benefit is appreciated.
Anyway, I'm now a caseless fan and this makes me very interested in the new Air. I think the need for cases is perhaps overblown and especially in a premium market like high-end iPhones where the consumer probably isn't as sensitive to aftermarket value, no-case isn't as rare or foolish as it would seem. For that reason, I doubt a bit that Apple are assuming the average person has a case on their phone. I'm sure they do focus groups, testing, and have some degree of telemetry to understand the case-vs-no-case debate in detail and I strongly doubt that the conclusion is "we assume there will be a case so we will do X".
I dropped my iPhone 15 Pro Max to my wife's iPhone 14 and it cracked the 14's screen right away. Because of these event, I started going caseless with my 15.
I think you'd be surprised by how durable the newer phones are, especially the iPhone Air. It's hard to completely protect a glass screen from shattering since its a crystalline material encased in a metal enclosure that is more likely to dent than flex, absorb the impact and return to it's shape, but they keep getting better and I think most people could go without a case if they really wanted to.
If you're curious about just how durable the iPhone Air is, take a look at the latest Jerry Rig Everything video where it exceeded his typical scratch test resits and he was unable to bend it with his hands.
> Typical smartphone glass starts scratching at a level 6 on the Mohs scale of hardness, but Zack’s picks barely left marks even at 7. “Apple ruined my line,” he joked, noting that Corning’s new Ceramic Shield 2 is a big improvement over last year’s iPhone 16 lineup, even besting the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s Gorilla Armor 2, which showed visible scratches at a level 6 when it was put to the same test earlier this year.
and
> Using a crane scale in his garage, he applied direct pressure in the center of the iPhone Air until it finally gave way. The iPhone Air endured up to 216 pounds (~98kg) of force before its front glass finally cracked and the titanium frame flexed past the point of recovery. Surprisingly, the back glass came out unscathed, and the phone was still powered on and usable in the end.
I’ve been caseless for a while and have had a couple of drops and the phone has been fine. When I eventually upgrade my phone, I’ll probably stay caseless, or add minimal protection. Mainly cause if the increasingly rare catastrophic drop happens, it’d be unpleasant to deal with.
I do like some cases for their design elements, I might use one to just further personalize my phone.
I have been caseless forever. If I drop the phone and it breaks I’ll bring it to repairs (I used to do it myself but it’s more complicated now and I don’t have the time anymore anyways).
To answer both comments at the same time, I very rarely drop my phone. It happened 3 or 4 times, from pocket height, the screen stayed intact. Got a few scratches but that’s all (it’s the mini).
I don't know what it is about iPhones but I find them to get damage/chips/scratches super easy compared to the Android phones I've used.
Maybe the new phones are better, but I was quite disappointed when I noticed how easy the paint came off. What's the point of a pretty phone if you're gonna need me to put a case around it?
I’ve been carrying an iPhone since the first one - so, almost 20 years?
Have never used a case. I’ve dropped them plenty of times. Only once did I do major damage, and that was to the all-glass rear panel of a 4S. I’ve never broken a screen or had to replace a phone due to damage.
The iPhone is very durable! You don’t need a case. They’re bulky and ugly!
I don't think most people need a bulky case. You can get aramid cases that barely add any thickness, but still protect the phone from dents and scuffs.
Cases can absorb so much stress because they're made of soft materials that degrade over time. I replace mine ~once a year. Such materials aren't really a good match to be built directly into a phone.
I think the average person wouldn't run into a meaningful problem without a case, maybe a light scratch or two somewhere if they looked closely, it's just the idea they might need a case that leads them to use one. This is probably even more true of screen protectors - which add on to this because they scratch much easier than a phone screen would, making people think "wow, it's a good thing I used a screen protector!" even if it wouldn't have been a problem for them.
Because of the above, I don't think there is anything (reasonable) smartphone manufacturers could do to make people feel like they shouldn't add one just in "case".
I never understood screen protectors. In 15 years I have never used a screen protector on any smartphone, and have also never had any scratches on the screen either.
On average, I keep the same phone for 3-4 years (current phone is an iPhone 11, coming up on 6 years old).
It’s easy to understand, when the phone accidentally drops on concrete from >1m of height there is a great chance of shattering the glass. It happens to millions of person, myself included, no matter the care it’s an accident that can cost 300$ to repair. 10$ the screen protector is worth it.
I guess you’re lucky !
The titanium iPhones, at least, are nearly impervious to scratches when dropped on concrete or asphalt from a reasonable height. I “scientifically” test this pretty often.
Because the iPhone 15 pro was significantly lighter than previous pro models, I wanted to avoid a case to get the most out of this improvement. However, I wouldn’t have even experimented with not using a case if it weren’t for the applecare+ plans that are reasonable. I’ve been surprised by the durability to the extent that I should probably discontinue the applecare+ plan.
The aluminum models might not be as durable. Compared to phones 20 or even 30 years ago that didn’t need a case, I suppose a significant difference is the density as much as the total weight or the hardness of the materials.
Phones 20 years ago didn’t have expansive glass-covered screens. The biggest I had (blackberry curve) was fairly plasticky and quite sturdy, when dropped it might sometimes eject the battery compartment cover but otherwise survived in perfect working order. And of course Nokias were almost indestructible.
I'm a person who tends to accidentally throw my phone around a lot, and don't use a case (cause the added bulk makes me throw it around even more). Often on ceramic tiles, often with added velocity from me walking or hitting it in the air while trying to catch it.
My iPhone 13 Pro still survived 3 years, and only had some scratches and bruises on its corners, but nothing broke (still in use, by someone else now). My iPhone 16 Pro after a year of that same treatment is almost unblemished (a small bruise on one of the corners).
These are, in practice, extremely resistant to damage.
How do you propose making a device that people wouldn't feel the need to put a case on? You could make the whole thing out of rubber but that's still going to take cosmetic damage that people want to protect the device from. You could make it easy to replace that rubber... but at what point is that not just functionally the same as a case?
One way would be to have an accelerometer detect that the phone is falling, and have tiny spring-actuated bumpers, wires, or feet extend from the corners of the phone to catch its fall. Little stainless-steel or Nitinol wires would do great.
Back when the early iPods actually contained a spinning hard drive, they had something similar. If it detected a fall, it would quickly park the hard drive to avoid damage.
That's been the case for several years now. Gone caseless with iPhone X, 12, and 13 Pros for years now and have gotten some scratches to the sides and a small crack on the back glass here or there, but no significant screen scratches or breaks. Some scuffing around the edges is it.
Last time I broke the front screen of a phone was an HTC Evo.
I don't use a case or screen protectors. My 15 Pro frequently falls on the floor. The back shattered on multiple occasions, but even then never became a cut hazard. The screen remains pristine.
If you want to do a trade in every 1, 2, or 3 years then scratches or damage to the phone can decrease the value on the old phone.
I tried rocking no case and broke the screen which isn’t a huge deal but required attention, downtime, and the phone didn’t work the same way after repair.
I don't have experience with iPhones, but I assume they're pretty similar to recent non-foldable Samsung flagships. My S23U has had many falls over the past 2.5 years, been surprisingly fine. Maybe they've finally gotten good enough to survive the typical fall reliably.
I remember that there was a Dilbert comic, back when Apple started releasing models with back-and-front glass, that referred to "a smartphone" as being "BSB," which stood for "Beautiful, Slippery, Brittle." The idea was that buyers were encouraged to not get a case (thus, hiding the "beauty"), but it was easy to drop ("slippery"), and easy to break ("brittle").
I have an iPhone 13 pro max. Bought it on release, never used a case and it’s still in perfect condition. I don’t drop it once or twice a month though, but definitely dropped it before.
> I still need to buy a phone case with my new phone?
…you don’t. I don’t. My phone is scratched here and there, but not in a way that I notice. I used to defend this with my purchasing of insurance, but frankly, I crack the screen now maybe once every 2+ years.
> Apple is assuming the average person will have a case on their phone
I think it is fair to assume that irrespective of the design, most people will case their phones. Leaning into that is fine as long as the phone is still functional without a case. (Which, again, every iPhone in the last decade has been.)
For my phones, I use the cheapest most-featureless blackest thinnest TPU cases I can get my hands on.
They tend to [just barely] cover the edges of the glass screen, they're very inexpensive. They never seem to wear out in any appreciable way.
So far, zero broken screens in the ~16 years I've been carrying these pocket computers absolutely everywhere...and I drop them about as often as anyone else does, I suppose.
> functional without a case. (Which, again, every iPhone in the last decade has been.
Agreed they're functional without a case.
Whether it's functional after dropping it face down on the glass onto cement/marble is another question!
I'm not too concerned with cosmetic scratches. The main issue is the screen shattering. And the back of the phone shattering in older models where the back was glass.
I have a case, and therefore I don’t crack my screen (or back), ever. When I sell it after upgrading, I can truthfully list it as “like new” (after a battery replacement).
With the new thin phones, and unibody metal phones, I hope people start moving towards ultra-thin aramid/kevlar cases. I have one on an S25 Edge and it's a lot different from the fatter phone era. I don't see why you wouldn't, frankly, on the new shatterless iPhones.
AppleCare+ basically makes it so having a case or screen protector isn't a requirement for me. I was actually only using a screen protector for about a year, but what I found was they actually are more fragile than the phone's screen itself. I was going through them every 2-3 months. So about a year ago I stopped using screen protectors as well and have dropped the phone many times like how I dropped it with the screen protector and the screen has been fine.
Sure I have some scratches on the screen, but so what? If the front or back glass shatter, it's $29 to fix.
> I'm guessing phone cases are still pretty much required if you drop your phone once or twice a month onto cement/asphalt/marble/etc from pocket height.
I mean... yeah? What consumer tech is that resilient? Maybe put a lanyard on the your phone and attach it to your belt, I mean..
They could make a toughbook style phone for people with such habits, but engineering a mainstream device for such resiliency is going to be overkill for most users and cause a lot of tradeoffs in size/cost/features.
I don't use a phone case or a screen protector. Examining my phone which is about two years old, there are a few hairline cracks on the back glass, and the front glass is mildly scratched if I hold it at just the right angle to catch the light. I'm sure if I dropped it on concrete at the right height and angle it'd fully crack the screen but generally speaking I haven't needed a case in nearly a decade.
This is a wild statement to make so matter of factly.
Do cases guarantee your screen won't break if you drop your phone? No. Do they dramatically diminish the likelihood of cracked glass in the most common scenario of phone falling on flat concrete? Absolutely.
It’s no longer worth the risk though. You need your phone for so much stuff having it break is extremely inconvenient. And given the price of phones, and the cost of cases and screen protectors, theres no reason not to do it.
I have gone through several sacrificial layers of glass to save several versions of gorilla glass (etc). I have also lost several screens later because I wasn't quick enough in replacing the sacrificial glass.
Some of us are harder on our things than others...
Most big screen damage happens from things hitting the edge of the phone. Cases prevent this. Also, the edge is the one area not really protected by screen protectors.
Same. Just a thin rubber strip around the permimeter or something like that to make it a bit easier to hold would probably be all I need. A completely caseless phone is too slippery.
This is a heat pipe. A technology from the 60s. Your laptop almost certainly has heat pipes in it. They usually use alcohol rather than water as the phase change material though. The (relatively) novel thing is that it's packaged small enough to be in a phone. I suspect the only reason it hasn't been used in handhelds more is because the TDP of mobile processors wasn't high enough to warrant it.
Vapor chambers and heat pipes use some of the same physics concepts, but a vapor chamber is significantly more effective for spreading heat across a large area. They’re also harder to manufacture and more complex.
Have you ever seen a CPU or GPU heat sink that has 5-6 heat pipes in parallel because they need to spread the head over a larger area? A vapor chamber is an upgrade over heat pipes in applications that aren’t moving heat from a point to a line.
Perhaps it's just that in retrospect, it seems a relatively small jump from heat pumps to vapor chambers.
Do you know if the vapor chambers operate at reduced internal atmospheric pressure? Unless I'm missing something, in order to get the liquid-gas phase boundary to a useful temperature, you'd have to bring the pressure down to, idk, 10kPa (boiling point of water is ~50C)? That would complicate manufacturing for sure, and also means that any leaks are catastrophic for your thermal solution.
Also I would be remiss if I did not note that the refrigerant designation of water is R-718.
Heat pipes are one dimensional (a pipe), vapor chambers are two dimensional (a square chamber). Most vapor chambers I've seen on GPUs have the chamber attached to lots of small heat pipes on the side though (they even note this in article, in case you feel like reading it).
That said, I assume the main technical breakthrough here is in manufacturing, producing tiny chambers consistently in enough volume for iphones.
Any passive phase change thermal solution is doing the same thing - take thermal energy from one place, and distribute it for dissipation. My point is that the geometric configuration isn't that important, it's doing the same work the same way. Not really worth arguing about, I just suspect that the branding people love that they had a new buzzword in "vapor chamber" to bandy about.
As I understand it, it’s more than that: there are small “inverted pyramids” that cause the water to condense more rapidly, to extract even more heat from the system.
Vapor chambers are in laptops already. Mostly gaming laptops, because they need help getting the heat away from GPUs.
The miniaturisation of vapor chambers is cool, though. Not new (phones have been coming out with those for years), but it's not "just" another heatpipe.
I think that the fact that more and more phones producing so much heat that they need vapor chambers is also something worth writing about.
That said, most news media seems to have drunk the Apple kool aid because they all rave about the vapor chamber for some reason. I guess iPhone media is just a few years behind the curve.
The article doesn’t claim Apple was first. They call out Samsung in the subheading.
Samsung wasn’t even first.
Why is the Android fanbase so obsessed with who did something first? If something is available in both ecosystems then I couldn’t care less who did it first.
Wrong. The vast majority of Apple fans don't care about Android. I never see "Apple fans" going in threads about random Android stuff and talking about it. On the opposite, I see a lot of Android users complain and talk in every single videos regarding anything Apple on YouTube.
It extends beyond videos. I have a friend that works at Apple. In social gatherings, he'll be vague about where he works, to avoid having to hear people defending their Android phones and shitting on Apple. I thought he was exaggerating, but then he showed me. It's super weird.
You should know how this goes by now. It's not like this is the first time Apple introduced an old technology but marketed it like they invented sliced bread. I give their marketing team credit.
I think miniaturizing it to fit into a modern cellphone adds a few complexities that make it pretty different from the heat pipes and vapor chambers that existed in the 70s.
I think you are exaggerating how much people care about apple outside US. Apple is popular but Samsung, Xiaomi etc are also very dominant in other markets.
Tell me when was the last time you heard boomers talk about Samsung. Never happened. Now how many times has nana mentioned "the iPhone" specifically?
Also not from the US, I live in Thailand. Everyone wants an iPhone. Those who can't afford it buy Oppo, etc.
Samsung may be "strong" in Europe but it's just because it's colorful and/or cheaper. You live in the HN bubble if you think that people care about specs and not brands/price. The choice is generally "Either Apple or whatever else in my budget"
Not everyone wants an iPhone in Germany. It is not in the least like everyone who can afford it gets one and the others Android. Like in most high income countries, the money for an iPhone is available or can be scrounged together for the vast majority of people.
Oppo uses these in some of their phones. They gave a factory tour to the "Know Art" Youtube channel, which made a good video on it: https://youtu.be/qAZ-q3KmDHM
I'm interested to see how many/few complaints we see about the iPhone Air overheating, since it has almost the exact same chip as the 17 Pro but a simpler cooling system
"My phone is really hot, is this normal or is it broken?!" is something I started getting asked by random iPhone-using friends over the last few years as they upgraded to a new model and then felt it sizzling.
Got my air yesterday and it definitely gets hot. Will see how it does after a few days as I expected the heat due to the initial sync and transfer, and iOS indexes everything for a day or two.
Got my air yesterday and it definitely gets hot. Will see how it does after a few days as I expected the heat due to the initial sync and transfer, and iOS indexes everything for a day or two.
I have one, too, and you're right that the heating is just what happens while it restores its data and settings and whatnot.
I believe it also re-scans your entire photo library to re-identify dogs, cars, people, etc. with whatever improved algorithm comes with the new chip/OS.
This happens every time you get a new iPhone. Depending on how much it has to sort through, it can take a couple of hours to a week.
I always leave the case off for the first few days.
>I'm interested to see how many/few complaints we see about the iPhone Air overheating
One less core, and from the benchmarking it's clear that it throttles a fair bit earlier than the rest. Even worse its a titanium body so worse dissipation
> In Apple’s version, a small amount of deionized water is sealed in the chamber. […] Water is often used in vapor chambers, though sometimes other materials are mixed in to prevent it from freezing and cracking the seal, Chiriac says.
So Apple uses deionized water, while others add in some other chemicals to prevent it from freezing. So how will the new iPhone deal with freezing temperatures?
Is it necessary to prevent the water from freezing? If the chamber and water within are subzero while the SoC produces sufficient heat, the ice would simply melt.
* Edit: the article mentioned freezing could crack the seal. Freezing would be a bigger issue than I had thought, then.
I remember being stuck on a ski lift on a day that was too cold and windy for any intelligent person to be skiing. The phone in my breast pocket was cold to the touch and the battery capacity evaporated by 50%. The display's response time was hundreds of ms. I turned it off at that point.
Not a huge deal. Just charge it when it's warmer. I would have been a little surprised if something inside popped and suddenly the phone started thermal throttling or had water damage.
Why have none of the major players tried integrating a case? Making a ruggedized version? They could probably do a lot better and find ways to innovate with something integrated.
Why do they ignore the fact that so many people use cases (and the market opportunity)? It's almost a defect at this point. Some people like the personalization but I think a lot of people just want something that won't break when you drop it...
> Why do they ignore the fact that so many people use cases (and the market opportunity)?
Apple sells cases.
There are ruggedized phones available. The market is small.
You can get away without a case with a modern iPhone for longer than most people assume.
The average person does better with a $10 sacrificial case layer that snaps on to their phone that can be replaced whenever they want or if it gets damaged.
Lots of reasons. The most obvious ones that come to mind:
1. People like a variety of custom cases that themselves have features (eg wallet cases random designs etc). If it’s built into the phone that customization capability is worse because you now have two layers of protection making for a very thick and heat-insulating design.
2. It’s valuable to have partners that make accessories for your device. If you kill that line of business for them, other things may go away and those partners will want to work with you less.
3. An integrated case will still suffer cosmetic damage. But now without the option to replace, you’re stuck with that damage.
For phones that heat up enough to need it, the screen also acts as a way to dissipate heat. Unless you put an extremely thick screen protector on there, the phone will still be able to get rid of some heat through the glass.
I do wonder how this will affect benchmarks, though. I can imagine the phones running slower in practice compared to reviews because the reviewers don't put a case on there.
I've noticed my iPhone get hot the most while using the camera. Especially while taking video, but after a few photos it gets hot as well. I was on vacations last week in a tropical country and took a lot of photos with my 16 Pro and it gets so hot after just a few photos that it starts lagging A LOT due to the throttling.
I'm sure this is handy for LLM usage, but this was a problem before those were a thing I'd say.
I have the same case, iPhone 16 pro is getting really hot when taking photos and videos it’s unbearable. I will change my phone for that reason, the battery melts right away …
I noticed something though, when taking a picture with the x5 camera if I cover the main lens the brightness changes. So I think the iPhone now merges the two stream to enhance quality. That wasn’t the case before and that might be why the phone is getting hot
Phone usage is getting more intense as we move from mere passive consumption to having them as creative (compute) device. "Heat" is sort of reflection of that.
I want to see more optimization to reduce the heat from both hardware as in this case and in software side as well. I guess it is easier to show enhancements about hardware made to address something such as heat or processing but comparatively difficult or abstract to show software optimizations?
From a keynote perspective, I guess showing software optimizations is less cinematic and not everyone can appreciate them as opposed to new or beautiful looking hardware.
I guess? But vapor chambers are mostly good where space is a premium and where passive (non-powered) cooling is enough.
I'm guessing for EV batteries, better options exist since you obviously have power. Although sometimes vapor chambers are used in conjunction with active cooling.
With iPhone 17 line the security situation has improved dramatically. I'm not a cybersecurity researcher, but Apple says even nation-state actors will struggle to breach a single device with the newly introduced Memory Integrity Enforcement mechanism. Their research appears legit:
Yup. Pretty similar to the modern threat profile of Android, all things considered.
> your average Android device has multiple publicly known remote execution issues.
Help me distinguish between "publicly known" RCE vulns and private ones. Do the privately owned exploits like FORCEDENTRY count as "publicly known", or only the Greykey/Cellebrite exploits used by governments?
> Pretty similar to the modern threat profile of Android, all things considered
I don’t think this is accurate. Not even every nation-state would be expected to have access to iPhone zero days, particularly with the new memory protection rolling out.
I don't think that's accurate, either. NSO Group sold their exploits to several other nation-states, seemingly without much (any...?) vetting concerning the ethics of their government.
> seemingly without much (any...?) vetting concerning the ethics of their government
I’m not trusting in ethics. I’m trusting in commerce.
MIE should drastically reduce both the production rate and lifetime of zero days. That, in turn, means a focus on maximising profit per vulnerability versus process line.
Apple’s primary motivation is to sell hardware. Their brand is hurt if their direct customers suffer damages through malware.
Google’s primary motivation is to sell ads. Their brand is not hurt if phone brand FlirpleFoo ships millions of Android devices and then hurts those customers by not keeping those devices secure.
I have an iPhone Air now and have no complaints about the heating. The thinness is worth the occasional heat and throttle down. Every time I pick up this phone, it just feels fantastic!
Back when I had the iPhone 5S (7.6 mm vs the 5.6 mm of the iPhone 17 Air): It provided value in terms of feel. It felt like a piece of art meeting cutting edge technology. It wasn't about showing off.
It was also so light that it felt safe to use it without a protective case. And not that expensive.
Solid, tactile, and just the right size. Mine finally got stuck in a boot loop earlier this year, but I keep it in my desk drawer, and pick it up occasionally. The mute switch (an actual switch, not a button) is still the best.
My original iPhone (bought in June 2007 for competetive research) has started swelling and won't boot up. Still keeping it. Maybe I should store it in a bucket of sand though.
I am considering buying the Air over the base model 17. Only concern I have is whether the battery will degrade faster over charging cycles than base model? Someone with more experience in battery tech could explain if that could be the case possibly?
Last night I encountered a 3 min+ ad on YT about the construction of the iPhone 17 Pro. A few seconds were devoted to the cooling system. I watched the whole thing. It was better than the video it interrupted.
https://youtu.be/_-AS5DtDeqs?si=rTfubRDArVupqREt
Watching that video, the first thought I have is "So much engineering and I still need to buy a phone case with my new phone?"
I'm guessing phone cases are still pretty much required if you drop your phone once or twice a month onto cement/asphalt/marble/etc from pocket height.
I would be really curious to hear the internal debate at Apple wrt design tradeoffs + durability. E.g. how much of the iPhone design is only possible because Apple is assuming the average person will have a case on their phone.
I wouldn't be surprised if the typical consumer would be more impressed by "No Case Required iPhone" compared to "Skinniest and lightest iPhone yet!".
> I'm guessing phone cases are still pretty much required if you drop your phone once or twice a month onto cement/asphalt/marble/etc from pocket height.
Here's video of a drop test where the new Pro version survived drops to the pavement on its front, back, and side from hip height, then the same three drops from shoulder height and finally having the front glass fail in the third drop from as high above his head as dude's arms would reach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oof5z3BNTdY
Not exactly super fragile, although the orange finish on the aluminum scuffed up much more easily than the finish they use on titanium.
> Watching that video, the first thought I have is "So much engineering and I still need to buy a phone case with my new phone?"
You can buy a $400m yacht and still need buoys when you dock it.
Unless you want a phone that comes with a pre-installed rubber bumper around the outside, or we have some humanity altering discoveries in transparent materials science, you’re always going to have a case. Gravity and concrete are undefeated.
Saying "gravity and concrete are undefeated" is not explanatory.
In 25+ years of carrying a naked mobile phone everywhere I've never broken one. My lifestyle theoretically exposes me to significantly greater risk of damage than the average person too. I view phones as semi-disposable devices, so I take no special care or precautions.
I am eternally baffled as to why people need cases on their phones. The observation that many people do seem to break them frequently isn't an explanation. I can't wrap my head around the degree of clumsiness and carelessness that would seem to be required to explain this phenomenon.
> Unless you want a phone that comes with a pre-installed rubber bumper around the outside
Sure, why not?
I don’t use a case. It’s fine.
Neither do i, i drop it often, throw it about and its fine. Everyone goes mad and is surprised, but whats the point if buying a nice phone then covering it in a case.
Cases are great because everyone can get one that matches their risk level and frequency of drops.
Having a sacrificial outer layer that I can replace for $10 is also preferable to letting the $1000 phone take the damage.
Yeah, I never understand these caseless discussions.
I went caseless once since I didn't realize my case would arrive a week after I bought the phone.
The phone was slippery (couldn't temporarily rest it on my knee), and I found myself inspecting the restaurant/bar table any time I put the phone down after that one night I placed it right into a puddle of beer condensation and some mysterious food that got in the mic on the back of the phone and grossed me out.
The phone could be indestructible to drops and it still wouldn't solve those issues.
I go caseless just because of sheer amount of bulk cases add, even the "thin" ones. It significantly impacts how easy the device is to hold and pocket.
The Air I might consider putting a bumper case on since its thinness offsets the bulk increase, but it's specifically made to be resilient to drops so it's a coin toss even with that.
I barely drop my phone though, it happens maybe twice a year, usually on carpet. In the last decade my phones might've had a run-in with concrete or pavement 2-3 times, tops.
My case is AppleCare+.
I just use one of those pop out nubbin grip things that were popular like ten years ago.
You usually just need to replace the front or back glass, which is $30 with Apple Care or $60 for both, not the entire iPhone. I crack mine about once a year.
Pretty crazy concept; I wonder if someone could ever figure out something for a replaceable battery.
Magnetically attachable external batteries exist. Apple basically came up with the concept (MagSafe).
Yup for both counts
I don't see what's the big deal honestly
Some people just seem to like making things harder on themselves
Meanwhile if I drop my phone (which I'm very careful, so it was probably once or twice and not from too high) it's really nbd
I started using cases after having a Pixel 2 XL shatter in a 1 foot drop onto a granite countertop, but started going case-less again with my most recent iPhone 15 Pro (ironically, after the horrible quality Apple case I mistakenly bought with it disintegrated).
It's been a year so far of completely non-cautious use and my general take is:
* The screen still scratches; I leave my phone in my pocket or a bicycle saddle bag and it definitely has some damage. However, it is only visible with the screen off, and it turns out not to bother me a single bit.
* The frame of the phone seems almost invulnerable; even with a case many of my older phones got dinged corners, and this one is perfect.
* Overall, the only functional issue I have had with going caseless has been the propensity for the protruding cameras to pick up dust and fingerprints. I find myself having to wipe them even more frequently than I did when I had a case.
I suspect that a case still would have been a net-positive fiscal investment, I'll probably have to sell this phone in "good" or "fair" condition rather than "factory new" like a phone with a case and glass screen protector for its whole life, so I'll lose $50-$100. But I like using the phone on its own. The side and action buttons finally function as they should and the size benefit is appreciated.
Anyway, I'm now a caseless fan and this makes me very interested in the new Air. I think the need for cases is perhaps overblown and especially in a premium market like high-end iPhones where the consumer probably isn't as sensitive to aftermarket value, no-case isn't as rare or foolish as it would seem. For that reason, I doubt a bit that Apple are assuming the average person has a case on their phone. I'm sure they do focus groups, testing, and have some degree of telemetry to understand the case-vs-no-case debate in detail and I strongly doubt that the conclusion is "we assume there will be a case so we will do X".
The titanium frame really is strong. The 17 pro’s aluminum will dent way more easily
I dropped my iPhone 15 Pro Max to my wife's iPhone 14 and it cracked the 14's screen right away. Because of these event, I started going caseless with my 15.
I think you'd be surprised by how durable the newer phones are, especially the iPhone Air. It's hard to completely protect a glass screen from shattering since its a crystalline material encased in a metal enclosure that is more likely to dent than flex, absorb the impact and return to it's shape, but they keep getting better and I think most people could go without a case if they really wanted to.
If you're curious about just how durable the iPhone Air is, take a look at the latest Jerry Rig Everything video where it exceeded his typical scratch test resits and he was unable to bend it with his hands.
https://youtu.be/sQ56ve39l2I?si=XOgAtnlAtOwO4Lln
For those who prefer text over video:
> Typical smartphone glass starts scratching at a level 6 on the Mohs scale of hardness, but Zack’s picks barely left marks even at 7. “Apple ruined my line,” he joked, noting that Corning’s new Ceramic Shield 2 is a big improvement over last year’s iPhone 16 lineup, even besting the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s Gorilla Armor 2, which showed visible scratches at a level 6 when it was put to the same test earlier this year.
and
> Using a crane scale in his garage, he applied direct pressure in the center of the iPhone Air until it finally gave way. The iPhone Air endured up to 216 pounds (~98kg) of force before its front glass finally cracked and the titanium frame flexed past the point of recovery. Surprisingly, the back glass came out unscathed, and the phone was still powered on and usable in the end.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-iPhone-Air-bends-in-JerryR...
I’ve been caseless for a while and have had a couple of drops and the phone has been fine. When I eventually upgrade my phone, I’ll probably stay caseless, or add minimal protection. Mainly cause if the increasingly rare catastrophic drop happens, it’d be unpleasant to deal with.
I do like some cases for their design elements, I might use one to just further personalize my phone.
I have been caseless forever. If I drop the phone and it breaks I’ll bring it to repairs (I used to do it myself but it’s more complicated now and I don’t have the time anymore anyways).
To answer both comments at the same time, I very rarely drop my phone. It happened 3 or 4 times, from pocket height, the screen stayed intact. Got a few scratches but that’s all (it’s the mini).
Aren't iPhones expensive to repair? Like $100 minimum for just about anything. That's significant to recover from one incident.
I usually drop my phone 3-5 times a month. Inexpensive cases and screen protectors have saved me quite a lot of hassle.
Fewer repairs saves time, produces less waste, and preserves more of the resale value.
I have AppleCare+ so it’s $30. I’ve had my phone stolen way more often than needing anything repaired because it’s caseless.
Well, yes, we all know that you can go caseless if paying for repairs or new phones is within your budget.
The point of a case is to avoid having to pay for those repairs.
i was for a while too. but the shift back to aluminum does not bode well for caseless.
deep scratches are trivial and drops will immediately lead to heavy dents. that being said the screen itself is incredibly tough so it will be usable.
before (stainless / titanium) you could go caseless without concern. the most i ever had happen was a little crack on the back
I don't know what it is about iPhones but I find them to get damage/chips/scratches super easy compared to the Android phones I've used.
Maybe the new phones are better, but I was quite disappointed when I noticed how easy the paint came off. What's the point of a pretty phone if you're gonna need me to put a case around it?
I’ve been carrying an iPhone since the first one - so, almost 20 years?
Have never used a case. I’ve dropped them plenty of times. Only once did I do major damage, and that was to the all-glass rear panel of a 4S. I’ve never broken a screen or had to replace a phone due to damage.
The iPhone is very durable! You don’t need a case. They’re bulky and ugly!
I don't think most people need a bulky case. You can get aramid cases that barely add any thickness, but still protect the phone from dents and scuffs.
No case is great. I’ve taken to slapping a screen protector on my phone with no case. Keeps me from feeling bad about setting it face down.
Cases can absorb so much stress because they're made of soft materials that degrade over time. I replace mine ~once a year. Such materials aren't really a good match to be built directly into a phone.
I think the average person wouldn't run into a meaningful problem without a case, maybe a light scratch or two somewhere if they looked closely, it's just the idea they might need a case that leads them to use one. This is probably even more true of screen protectors - which add on to this because they scratch much easier than a phone screen would, making people think "wow, it's a good thing I used a screen protector!" even if it wouldn't have been a problem for them.
Because of the above, I don't think there is anything (reasonable) smartphone manufacturers could do to make people feel like they shouldn't add one just in "case".
I never understood screen protectors. In 15 years I have never used a screen protector on any smartphone, and have also never had any scratches on the screen either.
On average, I keep the same phone for 3-4 years (current phone is an iPhone 11, coming up on 6 years old).
It’s easy to understand, when the phone accidentally drops on concrete from >1m of height there is a great chance of shattering the glass. It happens to millions of person, myself included, no matter the care it’s an accident that can cost 300$ to repair. 10$ the screen protector is worth it. I guess you’re lucky !
The titanium iPhones, at least, are nearly impervious to scratches when dropped on concrete or asphalt from a reasonable height. I “scientifically” test this pretty often.
Because the iPhone 15 pro was significantly lighter than previous pro models, I wanted to avoid a case to get the most out of this improvement. However, I wouldn’t have even experimented with not using a case if it weren’t for the applecare+ plans that are reasonable. I’ve been surprised by the durability to the extent that I should probably discontinue the applecare+ plan.
The aluminum models might not be as durable. Compared to phones 20 or even 30 years ago that didn’t need a case, I suppose a significant difference is the density as much as the total weight or the hardness of the materials.
Phones 20 years ago didn’t have expansive glass-covered screens. The biggest I had (blackberry curve) was fairly plasticky and quite sturdy, when dropped it might sometimes eject the battery compartment cover but otherwise survived in perfect working order. And of course Nokias were almost indestructible.
Good point. I did have a Kyocera 6035 which I dropped and broke the screen on (years past its useful life) but that was an exotic device.
Yeah people forget how nearly indestructible the old Nokia candy bar phones were.
It's up to you whether you think you need it.
I'm a person who tends to accidentally throw my phone around a lot, and don't use a case (cause the added bulk makes me throw it around even more). Often on ceramic tiles, often with added velocity from me walking or hitting it in the air while trying to catch it.
My iPhone 13 Pro still survived 3 years, and only had some scratches and bruises on its corners, but nothing broke (still in use, by someone else now). My iPhone 16 Pro after a year of that same treatment is almost unblemished (a small bruise on one of the corners).
These are, in practice, extremely resistant to damage.
How do you propose making a device that people wouldn't feel the need to put a case on? You could make the whole thing out of rubber but that's still going to take cosmetic damage that people want to protect the device from. You could make it easy to replace that rubber... but at what point is that not just functionally the same as a case?
One way would be to have an accelerometer detect that the phone is falling, and have tiny spring-actuated bumpers, wires, or feet extend from the corners of the phone to catch its fall. Little stainless-steel or Nitinol wires would do great.
Here's a patent for the idea which just expired this year: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7059182B1/
Apple also patented some versions of this, although I think not as nice as the 2005 one: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9571150B2
Back when the early iPods actually contained a spinning hard drive, they had something similar. If it detected a fall, it would quickly park the hard drive to avoid damage.
Same for ThinkPads.
And MacBook Pros.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Motion_Sensor
Though I don't recall iPods having that feature, nor can I find anything online supporting that claim.
Can't wait until the sensor is hacked and it becomes a remote controlled implement of pain.
> How do you propose making a device that people wouldn't feel the need to put a case on?
If the screen were reasonably scratch + shatter proof, I think most people wouldn't feel the need to wear a case.
That's been the case for several years now. Gone caseless with iPhone X, 12, and 13 Pros for years now and have gotten some scratches to the sides and a small crack on the back glass here or there, but no significant screen scratches or breaks. Some scuffing around the edges is it.
Last time I broke the front screen of a phone was an HTC Evo.
I don't use a case or screen protectors. My 15 Pro frequently falls on the floor. The back shattered on multiple occasions, but even then never became a cut hazard. The screen remains pristine.
If you want to do a trade in every 1, 2, or 3 years then scratches or damage to the phone can decrease the value on the old phone.
I tried rocking no case and broke the screen which isn’t a huge deal but required attention, downtime, and the phone didn’t work the same way after repair.
I would buy a case anyways because I prefer the appearance of my leather case to the plain phone appearance.
I don't have experience with iPhones, but I assume they're pretty similar to recent non-foldable Samsung flagships. My S23U has had many falls over the past 2.5 years, been surprisingly fine. Maybe they've finally gotten good enough to survive the typical fall reliably.
I remember that there was a Dilbert comic, back when Apple started releasing models with back-and-front glass, that referred to "a smartphone" as being "BSB," which stood for "Beautiful, Slippery, Brittle." The idea was that buyers were encouraged to not get a case (thus, hiding the "beauty"), but it was easy to drop ("slippery"), and easy to break ("brittle").
I have an iPhone 13 pro max. Bought it on release, never used a case and it’s still in perfect condition. I don’t drop it once or twice a month though, but definitely dropped it before.
I haven’t used a case in at least a decade. Why do you think it’s necessary?
> I still need to buy a phone case with my new phone?
…you don’t. I don’t. My phone is scratched here and there, but not in a way that I notice. I used to defend this with my purchasing of insurance, but frankly, I crack the screen now maybe once every 2+ years.
> Apple is assuming the average person will have a case on their phone
I think it is fair to assume that irrespective of the design, most people will case their phones. Leaning into that is fine as long as the phone is still functional without a case. (Which, again, every iPhone in the last decade has been.)
As long as we're doing anecdotes:
For my phones, I use the cheapest most-featureless blackest thinnest TPU cases I can get my hands on.
They tend to [just barely] cover the edges of the glass screen, they're very inexpensive. They never seem to wear out in any appreciable way.
So far, zero broken screens in the ~16 years I've been carrying these pocket computers absolutely everywhere...and I drop them about as often as anyone else does, I suppose.
> functional without a case. (Which, again, every iPhone in the last decade has been.
Agreed they're functional without a case.
Whether it's functional after dropping it face down on the glass onto cement/marble is another question!
I'm not too concerned with cosmetic scratches. The main issue is the screen shattering. And the back of the phone shattering in older models where the back was glass.
> Whether it's functional after dropping it face down on the glass onto cement/marble is another question
Confirming it is. Source: clumsy as hell.
The glass is sturdier and more scratch resistant than it was ten years ago, when I was smashing an iPhone screen a couple times a year with a case.
I have a case, and therefore I don’t crack my screen (or back), ever. When I sell it after upgrading, I can truthfully list it as “like new” (after a battery replacement).
With the new thin phones, and unibody metal phones, I hope people start moving towards ultra-thin aramid/kevlar cases. I have one on an S25 Edge and it's a lot different from the fatter phone era. I don't see why you wouldn't, frankly, on the new shatterless iPhones.
AppleCare+ basically makes it so having a case or screen protector isn't a requirement for me. I was actually only using a screen protector for about a year, but what I found was they actually are more fragile than the phone's screen itself. I was going through them every 2-3 months. So about a year ago I stopped using screen protectors as well and have dropped the phone many times like how I dropped it with the screen protector and the screen has been fine.
Sure I have some scratches on the screen, but so what? If the front or back glass shatter, it's $29 to fix.
Probably less environmental impact to replace a protector than the touch-capacitize screen. And don't have to make repair appointments and wait.
> I'm guessing phone cases are still pretty much required if you drop your phone once or twice a month onto cement/asphalt/marble/etc from pocket height.
I mean... yeah? What consumer tech is that resilient? Maybe put a lanyard on the your phone and attach it to your belt, I mean..
They could make a toughbook style phone for people with such habits, but engineering a mainstream device for such resiliency is going to be overkill for most users and cause a lot of tradeoffs in size/cost/features.
I don't use a phone case or a screen protector. Examining my phone which is about two years old, there are a few hairline cracks on the back glass, and the front glass is mildly scratched if I hold it at just the right angle to catch the light. I'm sure if I dropped it on concrete at the right height and angle it'd fully crack the screen but generally speaking I haven't needed a case in nearly a decade.
Cases aren’t necessary, have not been for a while. They don’t actually protect your screen.
This is a wild statement to make so matter of factly.
Do cases guarantee your screen won't break if you drop your phone? No. Do they dramatically diminish the likelihood of cracked glass in the most common scenario of phone falling on flat concrete? Absolutely.
It’s no longer worth the risk though. You need your phone for so much stuff having it break is extremely inconvenient. And given the price of phones, and the cost of cases and screen protectors, theres no reason not to do it.
I have gone through several sacrificial layers of glass to save several versions of gorilla glass (etc). I have also lost several screens later because I wasn't quick enough in replacing the sacrificial glass.
Some of us are harder on our things than others...
Most big screen damage happens from things hitting the edge of the phone. Cases prevent this. Also, the edge is the one area not really protected by screen protectors.
I use a case mostly to provide grip. The bare metal is too slick.
Same. Just a thin rubber strip around the permimeter or something like that to make it a bit easier to hold would probably be all I need. A completely caseless phone is too slippery.
I recall my boss using electrical tape on the edges of his early iPhones.
A phone without a case and popsocket for me is like holding a bar of soap. A $1000+ bar of soap
I use a popsocket on a naked iphone 14 pro and it's great in my experience. I don't think I've dropped it once after going worth this setup.
This might be the first time I’ve seen someone happy about an advertisement in the wild. It is a cool video though!
The ads for ReMarkable 2 and Apple’s Don’t Blink are quite captivating and entertaining in a way that I can’t claim about typical advertising.
This is a heat pipe. A technology from the 60s. Your laptop almost certainly has heat pipes in it. They usually use alcohol rather than water as the phase change material though. The (relatively) novel thing is that it's packaged small enough to be in a phone. I suspect the only reason it hasn't been used in handhelds more is because the TDP of mobile processors wasn't high enough to warrant it.
Vapor chambers and heat pipes use some of the same physics concepts, but a vapor chamber is significantly more effective for spreading heat across a large area. They’re also harder to manufacture and more complex.
Have you ever seen a CPU or GPU heat sink that has 5-6 heat pipes in parallel because they need to spread the head over a larger area? A vapor chamber is an upgrade over heat pipes in applications that aren’t moving heat from a point to a line.
Don’t be so dismissive. This is actually cool.
Perhaps it's just that in retrospect, it seems a relatively small jump from heat pumps to vapor chambers.
Do you know if the vapor chambers operate at reduced internal atmospheric pressure? Unless I'm missing something, in order to get the liquid-gas phase boundary to a useful temperature, you'd have to bring the pressure down to, idk, 10kPa (boiling point of water is ~50C)? That would complicate manufacturing for sure, and also means that any leaks are catastrophic for your thermal solution.
Also I would be remiss if I did not note that the refrigerant designation of water is R-718.
Heat pipes are one dimensional (a pipe), vapor chambers are two dimensional (a square chamber). Most vapor chambers I've seen on GPUs have the chamber attached to lots of small heat pipes on the side though (they even note this in article, in case you feel like reading it).
That said, I assume the main technical breakthrough here is in manufacturing, producing tiny chambers consistently in enough volume for iphones.
Any passive phase change thermal solution is doing the same thing - take thermal energy from one place, and distribute it for dissipation. My point is that the geometric configuration isn't that important, it's doing the same work the same way. Not really worth arguing about, I just suspect that the branding people love that they had a new buzzword in "vapor chamber" to bandy about.
I liked this article from 10 years ago that actually goes into detail about how Fujitsu actually constructed a super-thin heat pipe (really just a very long vapor chamber) https://spectrum.ieee.org/superslim-liquid-loop-will-keep-fu...
"Vapor chamber" isn't a new buzzword. It's been the name for flat plate heat pipes since the 1970s.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19770025469/downloads/19...
As I understand it, it’s more than that: there are small “inverted pyramids” that cause the water to condense more rapidly, to extract even more heat from the system.
https://youtu.be/qAZ-q3KmDHM?si=pb08RMHEAA4o94xF
texture etc to promote condensation and to wick (without a rope) condensed liquid back to the hot point are also used in heat pipes.
I agree with the other commenters that "vapor chamber" is a kind of heat pipe, since "heat pipe" doesn't really impose constant radii by definition.
Also on some Android gaming phones since 2018. Regular heat pipes on phones dates back to at least 2013.
Vapor chambers are in laptops already. Mostly gaming laptops, because they need help getting the heat away from GPUs.
The miniaturisation of vapor chambers is cool, though. Not new (phones have been coming out with those for years), but it's not "just" another heatpipe.
I think that the fact that more and more phones producing so much heat that they need vapor chambers is also something worth writing about.
That said, most news media seems to have drunk the Apple kool aid because they all rave about the vapor chamber for some reason. I guess iPhone media is just a few years behind the curve.
It's a little bit older than just the 60s..
Why the emphasis on Apple when Samsung was there first?
It looks like the competition is making them sweat (pun intended).
The article doesn’t claim Apple was first. They call out Samsung in the subheading.
Samsung wasn’t even first.
Why is the Android fanbase so obsessed with who did something first? If something is available in both ecosystems then I couldn’t care less who did it first.
Probably because every Android or x86 thread gets filled with Apple fans doing similar things? This is just how these kinds of discussions go.
Wrong. The vast majority of Apple fans don't care about Android. I never see "Apple fans" going in threads about random Android stuff and talking about it. On the opposite, I see a lot of Android users complain and talk in every single videos regarding anything Apple on YouTube.
It extends beyond videos. I have a friend that works at Apple. In social gatherings, he'll be vague about where he works, to avoid having to hear people defending their Android phones and shitting on Apple. I thought he was exaggerating, but then he showed me. It's super weird.
Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
What on earth are you talking about? There isn't a single Android thread here where some Apple dude wouldn't have an utterly wrong post.
You should know how this goes by now. It's not like this is the first time Apple introduced an old technology but marketed it like they invented sliced bread. I give their marketing team credit.
Literally in the subheading:
> Apple joins Samsung and Google in managing heat
Usually it is sign for stability and usefulness if Apple adapts it. They rarely add something very new for mass production.
Heat pipes and vapour chambers are older than Apple
I think miniaturizing it to fit into a modern cellphone adds a few complexities that make it pretty different from the heat pipes and vapor chambers that existed in the 70s.
Oppo (Chinese phone manufacturer) also has them and manufactures them.
But the sweat is evaporating now, at least.
But seriously though, I think it's just due to larger market share (at least in the US), so more people are seeing it and commenting on it.
Because average people "care" about Apple far more than their peers.
Samsung is definitely NOT the first.
Because Samsung didn't invent the special patented Apple thermal transfer iShaft technology.
Samsung is not Apple. Relatively no one cares about Samsung outside Korea.
I think you are exaggerating how much people care about apple outside US. Apple is popular but Samsung, Xiaomi etc are also very dominant in other markets.
I'm not US based, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Market share is not what matters. When an S30 comes out, nobody cares. When a new iPhone comes out, my mother asks me about it.
This is why you're seeing a lot of people talking about something that Samsung did first.
You are very from US to think that. Samsung strong in Europe.
Tell me when was the last time you heard boomers talk about Samsung. Never happened. Now how many times has nana mentioned "the iPhone" specifically?
Also not from the US, I live in Thailand. Everyone wants an iPhone. Those who can't afford it buy Oppo, etc.
Samsung may be "strong" in Europe but it's just because it's colorful and/or cheaper. You live in the HN bubble if you think that people care about specs and not brands/price. The choice is generally "Either Apple or whatever else in my budget"
Not everyone wants an iPhone in Germany. It is not in the least like everyone who can afford it gets one and the others Android. Like in most high income countries, the money for an iPhone is available or can be scrounged together for the vast majority of people.
Oppo uses these in some of their phones. They gave a factory tour to the "Know Art" Youtube channel, which made a good video on it: https://youtu.be/qAZ-q3KmDHM
I'm interested to see how many/few complaints we see about the iPhone Air overheating, since it has almost the exact same chip as the 17 Pro but a simpler cooling system
"My phone is really hot, is this normal or is it broken?!" is something I started getting asked by random iPhone-using friends over the last few years as they upgraded to a new model and then felt it sizzling.
Got my air yesterday and it definitely gets hot. Will see how it does after a few days as I expected the heat due to the initial sync and transfer, and iOS indexes everything for a day or two.
But even then it was no hotter than my 16 Pro
Got my air yesterday and it definitely gets hot. Will see how it does after a few days as I expected the heat due to the initial sync and transfer, and iOS indexes everything for a day or two.
I have one, too, and you're right that the heating is just what happens while it restores its data and settings and whatnot.
I believe it also re-scans your entire photo library to re-identify dogs, cars, people, etc. with whatever improved algorithm comes with the new chip/OS.
This happens every time you get a new iPhone. Depending on how much it has to sort through, it can take a couple of hours to a week.
I always leave the case off for the first few days.
>I'm interested to see how many/few complaints we see about the iPhone Air overheating
One less core, and from the benchmarking it's clear that it throttles a fair bit earlier than the rest. Even worse its a titanium body so worse dissipation
I figure it will just be clocked down to maintain thermals
> In Apple’s version, a small amount of deionized water is sealed in the chamber. […] Water is often used in vapor chambers, though sometimes other materials are mixed in to prevent it from freezing and cracking the seal, Chiriac says.
So Apple uses deionized water, while others add in some other chemicals to prevent it from freezing. So how will the new iPhone deal with freezing temperatures?
Is it necessary to prevent the water from freezing? If the chamber and water within are subzero while the SoC produces sufficient heat, the ice would simply melt.
* Edit: the article mentioned freezing could crack the seal. Freezing would be a bigger issue than I had thought, then.
I remember being stuck on a ski lift on a day that was too cold and windy for any intelligent person to be skiing. The phone in my breast pocket was cold to the touch and the battery capacity evaporated by 50%. The display's response time was hundreds of ms. I turned it off at that point.
Not a huge deal. Just charge it when it's warmer. I would have been a little surprised if something inside popped and suddenly the phone started thermal throttling or had water damage.
Which most people are going to immediately cover with an insulating layer of plastic or silicone.
At least the heat will be spread out from one spot (and into the battery?). All phone makers are doing what they can within the design constraints.
> Which most people are going to immediately cover with an insulating layer of plastic or silicone.
Or their hand. Or their pocket.
It’s fine. It’s planned.
The cooling solution’s job is to spread the heat around as much as possible so it can be dissipated in the limited conditions available.
Why have none of the major players tried integrating a case? Making a ruggedized version? They could probably do a lot better and find ways to innovate with something integrated.
Why do they ignore the fact that so many people use cases (and the market opportunity)? It's almost a defect at this point. Some people like the personalization but I think a lot of people just want something that won't break when you drop it...
> Why do they ignore the fact that so many people use cases (and the market opportunity)?
Apple sells cases.
There are ruggedized phones available. The market is small.
You can get away without a case with a modern iPhone for longer than most people assume.
The average person does better with a $10 sacrificial case layer that snaps on to their phone that can be replaced whenever they want or if it gets damaged.
Lots of reasons. The most obvious ones that come to mind:
1. People like a variety of custom cases that themselves have features (eg wallet cases random designs etc). If it’s built into the phone that customization capability is worse because you now have two layers of protection making for a very thick and heat-insulating design.
2. It’s valuable to have partners that make accessories for your device. If you kill that line of business for them, other things may go away and those partners will want to work with you less.
3. An integrated case will still suffer cosmetic damage. But now without the option to replace, you’re stuck with that damage.
For phones that heat up enough to need it, the screen also acts as a way to dissipate heat. Unless you put an extremely thick screen protector on there, the phone will still be able to get rid of some heat through the glass.
I do wonder how this will affect benchmarks, though. I can imagine the phones running slower in practice compared to reviews because the reviewers don't put a case on there.
Pretty sure this is 99% a reaction to LLMs. On the older ones things get really spicy with even short on device LLM runs.
I've noticed my iPhone get hot the most while using the camera. Especially while taking video, but after a few photos it gets hot as well. I was on vacations last week in a tropical country and took a lot of photos with my 16 Pro and it gets so hot after just a few photos that it starts lagging A LOT due to the throttling.
I'm sure this is handy for LLM usage, but this was a problem before those were a thing I'd say.
I have the same case, iPhone 16 pro is getting really hot when taking photos and videos it’s unbearable. I will change my phone for that reason, the battery melts right away … I noticed something though, when taking a picture with the x5 camera if I cover the main lens the brightness changes. So I think the iPhone now merges the two stream to enhance quality. That wasn’t the case before and that might be why the phone is getting hot
I really hope this will land on MacBook Air M5. Enough for me to keep the me on Air rather than going Pro.
Probably more likely on the macbook with the A19 pro chip (rumored). They'd probably be able to use the exact same vapor chamber
Phone usage is getting more intense as we move from mere passive consumption to having them as creative (compute) device. "Heat" is sort of reflection of that.
I want to see more optimization to reduce the heat from both hardware as in this case and in software side as well. I guess it is easier to show enhancements about hardware made to address something such as heat or processing but comparatively difficult or abstract to show software optimizations?
From a keynote perspective, I guess showing software optimizations is less cinematic and not everyone can appreciate them as opposed to new or beautiful looking hardware.
Can this tech be used for EV batteries?
I guess? But vapor chambers are mostly good where space is a premium and where passive (non-powered) cooling is enough.
I'm guessing for EV batteries, better options exist since you obviously have power. Although sometimes vapor chambers are used in conjunction with active cooling.
Heat pumps are way better if you have to manage a lot of heat anyway.
EV batteries have active cooling systems that force cool air through the packs.
Anyone noticed that the gradient pattern on the wallpaper says "PRO" if you look closely?
Not exactly brand new tech, but now on a mobile device without the long-term security baggage that often comes from using Android.
I think NSO Group has pretty thoroughly demonstrated that iOS users aren't exonerated from security concerns.
Yes, state actors will be able to breach into your iOS device if you're deemed important enough.
Edit: Meanwhile your average Android device has multiple publicly known remote execution issues.
With iPhone 17 line the security situation has improved dramatically. I'm not a cybersecurity researcher, but Apple says even nation-state actors will struggle to breach a single device with the newly introduced Memory Integrity Enforcement mechanism. Their research appears legit:
https://security.apple.com/blog/memory-integrity-enforcement...
> Apple says even nation-state actors will struggle to breach a single device
Oh, I remember when they said this about Blastdoor too!
Yup. Pretty similar to the modern threat profile of Android, all things considered.
> your average Android device has multiple publicly known remote execution issues.
Help me distinguish between "publicly known" RCE vulns and private ones. Do the privately owned exploits like FORCEDENTRY count as "publicly known", or only the Greykey/Cellebrite exploits used by governments?
> Pretty similar to the modern threat profile of Android, all things considered
I don’t think this is accurate. Not even every nation-state would be expected to have access to iPhone zero days, particularly with the new memory protection rolling out.
I don't think that's accurate, either. NSO Group sold their exploits to several other nation-states, seemingly without much (any...?) vetting concerning the ethics of their government.
> seemingly without much (any...?) vetting concerning the ethics of their government
I’m not trusting in ethics. I’m trusting in commerce.
MIE should drastically reduce both the production rate and lifetime of zero days. That, in turn, means a focus on maximising profit per vulnerability versus process line.
Apple’s primary motivation is to sell hardware. Their brand is hurt if their direct customers suffer damages through malware.
Google’s primary motivation is to sell ads. Their brand is not hurt if phone brand FlirpleFoo ships millions of Android devices and then hurts those customers by not keeping those devices secure.
I have an iPhone Air now and have no complaints about the heating. The thinness is worth the occasional heat and throttle down. Every time I pick up this phone, it just feels fantastic!
Serious question: how is the thinness providing value? Is it simply the feel?
Easier to slide into the back pocket of my jeans and it doesn’t bulge as much. It also just feels really good in your hands, great ergonomics.
Back when I had the iPhone 5S (7.6 mm vs the 5.6 mm of the iPhone 17 Air): It provided value in terms of feel. It felt like a piece of art meeting cutting edge technology. It wasn't about showing off.
It was also so light that it felt safe to use it without a protective case. And not that expensive.
Nothing feels better than the original iPhone.
Solid, tactile, and just the right size. Mine finally got stuck in a boot loop earlier this year, but I keep it in my desk drawer, and pick it up occasionally. The mute switch (an actual switch, not a button) is still the best.
My original iPhone (bought in June 2007 for competetive research) has started swelling and won't boot up. Still keeping it. Maybe I should store it in a bucket of sand though.
Open it, remove the battery and put it in a dedicated recycling bin.
Yep.
I am considering buying the Air over the base model 17. Only concern I have is whether the battery will degrade faster over charging cycles than base model? Someone with more experience in battery tech could explain if that could be the case possibly?
Every time I pick up this phone, it just feels fantastic!
I find that I treat it very gingerly. Something in my mind expects it to be fragile; presumably because it's thin and looks like glass.
17th iteration in less than 20 years, billions produced. About a billion already 'obsolete'.
Seems fair to ask: what's the expected lifespan of an iPhone these days?
Does anyone here have insight as to what percent of materials used to make them is actually recycled?